Village must protect every homeowner

Posted
Thursday, March 28, 2013 2:01 pm

To the Editor:

As a taxpaying resident of the Village of Valley Stream, I request to be represented properly. This village voluntarily participated in the flood map program and should not accept these flood maps until all residents that are erroneously in the high-risk flood zone are removed.

These new models supposedly were based on Nassau County digital elevation models, but the study limits did not extend far enough north to include my area. Why not? Why just one part of Valley Stream? Am I not a concern?

My property is north of Sunrise Highway and North of Merrick Road, near the Lynbrook border, yet my base flood elevation is required to be 20.2 feet. My property is at 19.7 feet, but I’m placed in an AE high-risk flood zone which is designated for areas prone to flooding and that experiences frequent flooding from storms or storm surges.

I’m told I’m in a floodway. A floodway is a channel of a stream that must be kept free of encroachment so that the 1 percent annual chance flood can be carried without substantial increases in the flood heights, in other words, where the water is likely to be the deepest and fastest. There is no water source at my location. How can anyone honestly justify this to be a high-risk flood zone? Nobody has been able to give me an intelligent explanation because there is no explanation why I’m stuck in an high-risk zone.

I have as-built plans from Nassau County that shows there is no water source at my property, but yet I’m placed in a high-risk zone. Why was this allowed? Originally, this village failed to act and accepted these maps years ago, when they should have exercised due diligence and prevented this from happening in the first place. Let’s not let this happen again.

The bottom line here is that the village should represent every single resident that should not be in a high-risk flood zone. It should file for a map revision of not only my location but all who were placed in an AE zone in error.